


Paley's Watch

by diedandwenttonightvale



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Suicide mention, rape mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 03:16:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3712768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diedandwenttonightvale/pseuds/diedandwenttonightvale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will has a gun, his anger, and a lot of confusion. He uses all three to try and process what Hannibal did to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paley's Watch

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically just Will trying to come to terms with everything that has happened to him and Hannibal's manipulation (ie abuse) of him, especially that of s1.

Will’s heart only beat once before he pulled the trigger. It was a slow, methodical beat – the beat of a heart that wasn’t expecting trouble. In the seconds before the bullet hit its mark, he remembered Dr Lecter telling him that being calm when he killed was a good thing. It occurred to him that he should ask the good doctor whether he still thought that, but Hannibal would probably be better off saving his breath right now. The man did have a penchant for the obtuse, after all.

“Will,” Hannibal said, the bullet in his shoulder making his breathing become laboured; it was much better at keeping the man down than the bullet to the leg had been. “Will.”

“Will, Will, Will.” He clenched his jaw. “It feels as if that’s all you’ve ever said to me, Doctor Lecter. The only word I ever hear from your mouth is my name. Or at least, it is during the times you allowed me to remember.”  
Lecter smiled. 

“It was even more insidious than the words you whispered to me in the light. You tried to tell me who I was. Not anymore.” He pointed the gun at his psychiatrist for the third time that evening.

“I made you who you are, Will. Your becoming was my design.”

He took his hand off the trigger so he wouldn’t feel the urge to squeeze it. “Who I’ve become is not your design.”

“Is it yours?”

Will tried to think of an answer that would satisfy him but found none. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t… know if you ever meant to become a killer?”

He took a step back – he wasn’t going to make the mistake of turning his back to a serial killer. “I am not who I am because of you.”

“There is no shame in being affected by your experiences, Will.”

Half a laugh spluttered out of him before he could stop it. “You’ve always been such a good psychiatrist, Doctor Lecter. Tell me, do you feel shame?”

Hannibal gave him that look. “No, I don’t. I am shaped by my experiences – how they shape me is not my fault.”

“You argue determinism in the same breath as taking the blame for what I am.” Will crouched down beside him, careful to keep all of the doctor’s limbs in view. “Are you feeling quite well?”

“I’ve been better.” He coughed and his chest heaved with the effort of breathing again afterwards. “I would prefer it if I contained a little less lead.”

Will nodded. “Spoils the meat.”

“Are you… are you going to eat me once you’ve killed me, Will?” Something in his eyes suggested that he would like that.

“I never said I was going to kill you, Doctor Lecter.” He tapped the gun against his leg, still unsure himself about what he was going to do. “And I certainly don’t want to honour every part of you.”

Hannibal stared at him. “What are you going to do to me, Will? You can’t arrest me. You don’t want to kill me… what are you going to do?”

Will kicked his leg and the killer grunted. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you yet. I don’t know how to make this better. I don’t know how to resolve it.”

Hannibal huffed uncharacteristically, making Will look up at him. “Have I taught you nothing? Your teacup won’t come back together. Whether you kill me or not, you will never be who you were. Nothing about your life will be resolved until it is ended.”

Will looked down at the floor, contemplating kicking Hannibal’s leg again. There was something so therapeutic about finally letting some of that anger out. “Always the manipulator, Doctor Lecter. My death ends nothing unless you die with me.”

“I wasn’t trying to suggest suicide, Will. I was simply stating fact.”

Will laughed. “We are not simple men. Do not aim to patronise me when I’m the one with the power now.”

“You believe that being the one to hold the gun makes you the one with the power?”

“I’ve been taking a more varied approach to life recently – I need more than just the fishing and the dogs to keep me grounded now – and so I went to a poetry reading.”

Lecter nodded. “Perhaps my influence is rubbing off on you.”

“It wasn’t your kind of poetry, but it struck a chord all the same. My favourite line was ‘my rapist is not a god’.” The words bit the air – whether that was because he had tried to call them back or because there was a fire building in his stomach, Will wasn’t sure.

“Am I your rapist now?”

“No.” He tapped the gun against his thigh in an off-beat manner that he knew would irritate Hannibal just as much as it irritated him. “But you’re also not a god. You can bleed – you might be able to feel. You can die, and you did not create me. My teacup may not travel back in time, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have the rest of the set. It doesn’t mean that I can’t buy a replacement. You do not control me.”

Lecter smiled, his breath coming to him quicker by the second and shallower by the minute. “If I do not control you, what are you going to do with me? I know what end I have been steering you towards. Do you?”

Will knelt down next to Doctor Lecter, bringing the gun up and placing his finger on the trigger. He looked into the murderer’s eyes for the final time…

**Author's Note:**

> The poem Will mentions is called 'Go Away' and is by Hieu Minh Nguyen and Ollie Schminkey, it's on Youtube somewhere and it is really good!


End file.
